Oklahoma City University has commissioned playwright Steve Gilroy of Northumbria University to write a play to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Oklahoma bombing. The play, The Oklahoma City Bombing Project, will be performed by Oklahoma City University students this month as part of its anniversary project to remember the bombing of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building.
OCU commissioned Gilroy, an award-winning playwright and Director of Performing Arts at Northumbria, due to his expertise in verbatim theatre: a form of documentary for the stage based on personal interviews and transcripts. Steve then worked with OCU students and staff to conduct more than 35 interviews with family members of victims, survivors, local officials and first responders.
Gilroy said, "often, during the verbatim process, interviewers have to work quite hard to coax stories from people. For this project, however, there was an incredible honesty that I haven’t seen before in any other project that I have done.
"People talked openly about their experience of the bombing; however, they also shared all sorts of different stories that say a lot about peoples’ ability to recover. They find themselves 20 years later when they are no longer defined by what’s happened and are able to open new chapters in their lives.
"The overwhelming message that comes from everybody interviewed for this project is the regeneration of the city as the background, but I think in the end, it is going to be about these very powerful individual stories that, when woven together, are going to create a much bigger human story about recovery."
His previous works include the award-winning Motherland, which was first performed in 2007 and toured the UK in 2009, shared the stories of women whose everyday lives were touched by the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe won it a range of awards including a Scotsman Fringe First, The Stage Best Ensemble Award, The Spotlight Award and the Jack Tinker Spirit of the Fringe Award.
He also wrote The Prize, in collaboration with senior lecturer, Richard Stockwell, sharing the true stories of Olympic successes and coinciding with London 2012. It also played at the Edinburgh Fringe.
He is Associate Director of Live Theatre before which he spent four years at the Royal Court and has worked with wide range of playwrights including Simon Stephens, Roy Williams Sarah Daniels and David Eldridge.
The Oklahoma City Bombing Project, directed by OCU instructor Courtney DiBello, will be performed at OCU’s Burg Theatre between 16 and 19 April. All performances are free to the public. A proportion of the proceeds from the play’s publication will be donated to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.